Shawn Lawless
Owner, racer and builder
Lawless Industries
Youngstown, Ohio
Racing Vehicles
Rocket Drag Bike raced by Larry "Spiderman" McBride
Lemon Juice S-10 raced by Shawn Lawless
Matrix Dragster raced by Scott Deal
Orange Juice Jr. Dragster Raced by Nick Deal
AGNS raced by Landen Rust
Swamp Rat 37 raced by Don Garlits
See Shawn's racing achievements in the 100 mph Club, ET Club and NEDRA Records.
Shawn's Racing Reports
This Weekend's Racing
August 25, 2012 2:57:16 PM EDT
Quaker update, or more appropriately,"What the Heck?"
Nick Deal made it to the semi final round of eliminations with runs of 7.92, 7.93, and 7.94, all within. 0.1 MPH. All lights were .065 or better. Today seemed to be our day. For some unknown reason the track decided to fully treat the surface after round 3 and mix in the modified class with the jrs. When we got our chance to run the semi the track was like glue. Nick had the right lane which was just a bit quicker so we dialed a 7.92. The left lane dialed a 7.98. When the light turned green Nick left with a .030 light blew by the guy in the left lane and disappeared. He finally lifted at 600 ft and coasted through the lights at 7.52 at 84 MPH !!!
He finished 80 ft ahead of the other car.
I knew the sticky track would be fast but I couldn't believe .4 seconds and 8 MPH quicker. I had not touched the Hairball settings all day and had charged to 108.9 every time.
I asked the track if we could make one more pass after the final to verify that it wasn't a fluke and they agreed to it.
Nick lifted at 500 ft and coasted through with a 7.56 at 77 MPH! It wasn't a fluke, so what was it? We have over 100 runs on this car and I had never seen anything like it.
One look at the Hairball settings revealed the answer. Somehow after the 1/4 final run and before the semi final, the Hairball changed the motor volts on it's own to 447 volts! We were running at full battery volts. Thank goodness we weren't running 200 battery volts or Nick may have lifted off the ground!
I have no idea why the Zilla would do that. They are almost always rock solid. I am going to replace the hairball and send it in for inspection. As they say,"that's Racin"
One week of points left and we are g! oing after that first win with a vengeance.
Go fast,
Shawn
PODC Annex Update
August 19, 2012 1:38:37 AM EDT
Initial inspection shows battery pack not so bad. A few fried cells but pack voltage still at nominal. Wow, we got well over 600 HP to the ground from her today 2 years and hundreds of runs since the 7.77 at Quaker.
So todays' runs in summary. The two 11's could not catch the four 7.5's in the sixty ft or in the 1/8 mile ET but surpassed in the 1/8 mile MPH and the 1/4 mile speed. We did not get a final run at 1/4 mile last week with the four motor setup due to weather. The track limited us to 1/8 mile only after we had warmed up with a 9.05 1/4 mile run. My best guess is that we could have run an 8.60 with two 11's OR four 7.5's with this battery. This equates to 640 HP to the ground which almost exactly equals the best amount to the ground that we got from the Rocket bike. So pick your poison. A single 13" GE, Dual 11" GE's, or four 7.5" GE's. They are all very different and all about equal.
Very Fun!
Shawn
PODC Annex Update
August 19, 2012 12:41:57 AM EDT
Matrix rnd 2:
I had to leave the track for the band gig and just got done. Big hopes for Matrix run but we were hammering on the old A123 pack very hard and finally paid the price . The guys let me know that we suffered some type of battery issue on the last run. Scott felt the power fade and let some smoke out of the pack. He finished the run coasting thru. I hope the old girl is still kicking but I will need Dereks eyes to let me know. If she is too tired to continue she went out in style and gave us hundreds of runs.
PODC Annex Update
August 18, 2012 7:15:32 PM EDT
Matrix eliminations rnd 1:
Other lane got nervous facing Matrix and went red. Scott dialed 8.79 and broke out with a 8.70 @ 151 MPH !!! Headed to rnd 2.
7's are getting closer. The old HTS A123 pack is cranking as good as ever!
Shawn
PODC Annex Update
August 18, 2012 6:25:10 PM EDT
Bad news. Long track delay due to an exploded tranny in right lane. Scott got loose on right lane just after and had to lift. Good News. They gave everyone a third time trial. Scott Deal 8.92 @ 146 MPH! Wooo Hooo! 1st round coming up. Battery is warming up. Dialed an 8.79.
Matrix, OJJ, AGNS 14 hr Quaker Marathon
August 13, 2012 8:35:52 AM EDT Expanding a bit on my post from late Saturday night:
We arrived Saturday at Quaker with 2 alky jrs. along with OJJ, Scott's alky dragster and my Matrix rail, and our good friend AGNS. All 4 Deal boys drove with Scott driving Matrix, while brand new NEDRA member Landen Rust rode AGNS. I was crew chief for all 3 EV's and had a ball. I will lefave the alky results for another forum but fielding 6 cars in one day that was plagued with starts and stops and sun and rain keeps one hustling!
Forgive me if my numbers are off a bit but I am on the road today and going by memory.
We had a large and varying head wind for the jr classes. I varied the settings from our last near dead on outing to account for the stif breeze and gave Nick a bit too much top end as he ran a 7.85 @ 77.60 MPH on his first time trial. About 1 mph more than we usually run even into the wind. Amazing what adding only 5 motor volts will do. The track was cold and slick and there was a mist in the air the first run and I heard the tires slip so on run two I left the volts the same and backed off the motor amps by 10 for the second TT. It left much cleaner but he still had a bit too much at the top end and went 7.87.@ 78.00. By now the front was moving in and the wind was all over the place. I backed off 2 motor volts and Nick won round one with a 7.91 @ 76.80 mph. We got a bye in round two and got to the semi's against a rookie driver in an inconsistent car. We told Nick not to push the start (NO RED) and I left the settings right where they were. Nick left with a .080 light, got a bit of tire slip and ran a 7.93 @ 76.80. It wasn't good enough as the young man next to him nailed the tree with a .012 and missed his dial by only .06. OJJ went in the trailer on a squeeker. Our defeater got to the final but unfortunately his luck ran out and his car broke out badly. Too bad, we were rooting for him to get his first win. as I was putting the timeslips away I realized that I had not filed the 7.90 record with NEDRA from the previous outing. I also realized that I had two sub 7.90 tickets in my hand from this outing. I do not believe in turning in the sub 7.90 tickets for a "perfect" 7.90 listing on the records page so I am sending in the previous outings 7.90 something record and leaving the window open just a crack for someone to better it in the future. Hopefully we will get that 7.900 ticket that we are looking for the hard way next week! With OJJ in the trailer and Matrix and AGNS prepped and ready the rains came..... Back in the trailer went the whole shebang.
Got a meeting. Got to run. More to follow.....
Shawn
Machine Design
August 9, 2012 2:15:10 PM EDT
Check out Machine Design Magazine
http://digital-edition.machinedesign.com/ Shawn
New member of the 125 MPH 1/8 mile club
J
uly 21, 2012 4:42:27 PM EDT
We had a week off from running the OJJ at Quaker as they had a private event and no points today so we took the opportunity to try a new track and do some drive system testing in one of my old dragster chassis that has been hanging on the wall for years. The Lemon Juice truck is a good test bed but we thought we would try something different so we rebuilt the backhalf of the car with separate interchangeable motor and axle sections. Magnolia Drag strip is an 1/8 mike track about 45 minutes from my house in a beautiful country setting. We made several 60', 330', and 1/8th passes testing different motor setups, Zilla settings, etc. On one of the test runs I managed to hit 125+ at the 1/8 mile mark before I bounced down through shutdown with my rear wheels in the air more times than I would have liked. That seemed like a good time to call the 1/8 mile passes a day and work on some 60' and 330 runs. We have a ways to go to catch the Rocket bike but low one twenty 60' and mid threes in the 330's made for a fun day in the hills. Anyway Chip I will send you the slip for membership in the 125 MPH 1/8th mile club. I'm working on a name for the car right now and will send it to you as well.
Shawn
AGNS Racing Top Fuelers on Dirt
July 31, 2012 11:17:26 PM EDT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__RaJdUbYFA&feature=youtu.be
Back from the Columbiana County Fairgrounds with maybe the strangest race report ever. Fiasco may be a good word. First off. We were informed prior to racing that even if we won the top fuel class we would receive no money. There was nothing in the rules to reject electric bikes but nothing to allow them either. So we were in it strictly for the bragging rights. As it turned out no Harley fuelers turned out. They were all no shows. I like to think they knew we were coming..... Our "top fuel" class consisted of 5 bikes including ours. A couple of big inch 4's and a couple of bored out Kaw 500 2 strokes. Absolutely no traction does not begin to describe what we got from our high tech paddle tire. We had no idea what the track would be this year. It was hard as a rock with a light layer of gravely dirt on top. The big paddle tire made lots of show and no go. Run one Landen got in it easy off the line and the bike just kinda sat there then spun like crazy and got sideways. He was in and out of it for the 300 ft and all over the track. We lost. Round two had us up against the most powerful bike there with a massive knobby. Landen got in it hard and got a good launch, then got sideways the same time as the other guy. Landen straightened his bike out, unfortunately the other guy didn't and went down hard. We won. The great thing about dirt drag racing, if you don't hit the wall, and don't hit the trailer at the end of the track, you can dump the bike and get back up and run again. That is exactly what the guy on the big 4 did. He wrapped up his cuts, parked his wounded bike, and ran the top gas class on his other machine. So onward to round three (double elimination), or so we thought. Someone at race control decided that the top fuel bikes needed time to cool, are you kidding me! We only used 4 volts the entire night, had the GE duct taped up tight, and never even got warm. Anyway, in order to allow a cool down they decide to insert the quad 450 class in the middle of ours. Great except there were at least 50 -70 quads, maybe more. 2 hrs later.........After the entire quad class has raced, squabbled, confused the starter, and basically run off the entire crowd with the most boring drag racing I have ever seen we get to our round three. The race announcer summed it up best. He said "I know why they call them quads. You have to lose four times to get disqualified". I tell Landen that there is no traction anywhere, to go easy off the line and ease into it. WRONG !!! I totally forget that we are running a Godzilla controller. Easing into the throttle backs off the accel rate dramatically. The light turned green and AGNS just sat there at the line for at least a half a second while the Kaw drove away then AGNS jumped up and spun the tire like crazy. We lost by at least ten feet. Done for the night. No money, no glory, and more quad runners than I ever want to see again but still somehow a great time. There is just something about dirt that is addicting.... Onward to dragsters and Thompson asphalt tomorrow night..
Shawn
Buckeyes go Fast, then Faster
July 13, 2012 7:01:00 AM
Congrats to the Ohio State Buckeye Electric Race Bike Team. At last weeks ECTA event at Wilmington they bumped their collegiate electric motorcycle speed record to 131 then 144 mph. OSU holds the distinction of have the fastest collegiate electric car AND motorcycle. We are proud to be a sponsor. Go Bucks!!!
http://evmc2.wordpress.com/2012/07/13/buckeyes-go-fast-set-new-records-target-isle-of-man/
Orange Juice Jr. - Nick Deal Day 2
June 16, 2012 2:06 PM
I just returned from Quaker City Motorsports Park where we concluded day 2 of the Orange Juice Jr dragster points racing venture.
2 time trials and 3 elimination rounds netted the following:
7.91 @ 76.49 on 7.90 dial
7.92 @ 76.50 on 7.90 dial
7.93 @ 76.47 on 7.90 dial
7.95 @ 76.53 on 7.90 dial
7.95 @ 76.40 on 7.92 dial
Nick went out in elimination round 3 with a - .0185 redlight. He was up against a tough car and went for the win. My best guess as to why the ET dropped off just a touch is that the track got stickier throughout the morning and gave a bit more rolling resistance. The difference in times is strictly in the first 60ft. We will adjust for that next time out.
The HTS battery was flawless and we took out the points leader in round 1. All in all a good day. Next time we want the trophy!!!
Shawn Lawless
SW37 tested this weekend
December 17, 2012 1:58 PM
I just returned from a great weekend in Gainesville, Florida where the weather stayed true, the stars aligned at least for a bit, and we got to see Big Daddy Don take Swamp Rat 37 down the track for the first time. Actually, I made a few outlaw passes in Ohio on Thursday but at low power and low speed just to test all the systems. Neither the car chassis nor body is complete and we only got in two 60ft launches and one 200-250ft blast before an issue with the tranny reverser brought an end to the day but we got a lot of the the initial data we were looking for and actually coasted to an 11.32 @67 MPH with 2/3 power on for less than 3 seconds. Next stop is to finish up the skin, the wing, and make a few tweaks and then hopefully back to Gator Country for some more fun. FYI, the Rocket bike is undergoing some major improvements in Virginia right now. I think it may need them very soon as all 3 60ft times were quicker than Rocket's best ever.
Shawn
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